Bluesman Sam Carr, R.I.P.

Bluesman Sam Carr, one of the premiere blues drummers of the modern era, passed away on Monday, September 21, 2009 after battling health problems over the past few years. Carr had recently lost his wife of over 60 years, Doris, and was living in a nursing facility at the time of his death. Carr was 83 years old.

Born in Arkansas as Samuel Lee McCollum in 1926, he was raised by the Carr family on their Mississippi farm. The son of noted blues guitarist Robert Nighthawk, Carr didn't meet his father until he was 7 years old, but by the time he was 16 he was driving Nighthawk to performances, collecting money at the door, and sometimes playing bass with his father.

The young bluesman originally picked up the harmonica as a child, and later added guitar to his repertoire, but it was as a drummer that he became best-known to the blues world. Carr hooked up with harp player Frank Frost in 1959 and would play with Frost until his death in 1999. With the addition of guitarist Big Jack Johnson, the three men become known as the Jelly Roll Kings, and would perform together for years and record several albums, under both Frost's name and as the Jelly Roll Kings.

Carr was a seasoned session player as well, his imaginative drumming adding to recordings by Delta and Mississippi Hill Country artists like Asie Payton, Jimmy "Duck" Holmes, T-Model Ford, and Robert "Bilbo" Walker. Carr also performed on Buddy Guy's award-winning Sweet Tea album, which was recorded in Mississippi. As a bandleader, the drummer fronted Sam Carr's Delta Jukes, releasing three albums, the most recent being 2007's Let The Good Times Roll.

Carr was respected by his peers and by blues fans, and would be nominated for a dozen Blues Music Awards/W.C. Handy Blues Awards as "Best Instrumentalist - Drums" between 1997 and 2008, and would share in two Jelly Roll Kings nominations. Sadly, Carr never won one of the coveted awards, but his contributions to the blues are set in stone nonetheless.

Photo courtesy Price Grabber